Richard B the EMT

While I'm certainly not a non-drinker of alcoholic beverages, I just tell the guys that I'm the "Designated Driver", or I'm less than 48 hours from my next shift, and they usually back off. Also, when I go to the NY State Volunteer Ambulance and Rescue Association's "Pulse Check" convention, because I know my van is not going to be moved for 72 hours, I'll probably have a Rum and Coke, or a beer my first night. I do drink, but by choice, not that much. (There was a time my "friends" thought to have me get rid of "my problems", I should get drunk. Others thought I should "get laid". There also was a vocal contingent thought I should do both the same night.)

Go west, young man (and woman). Does the world end at Tacoma, or Port Angeles, Washington State (looked up the furthest point west in the "Lower 48"), Key Largo, Florida (for the southeast) or Saint Agatha, Maine (northeast), or Huntington Beach, California (Southwest)? (Thanks, Google World) Then, there are the NYC snobs who view everywhere else but Manhattan Island as "Us versus Them" http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/The-New-Yorker-Cover-View-of-the-World-from-9th-Avenue-March-29-1976-Prints_i8553097_.htm (Not me. I'm a Noo Yawkah from Belle Harbor section, Queens County, NYC, NY, USA)

Call it 1950s perspective, but model building? Well, it has become a new age from 1970, so go for it, girl. Considering, an ambulance? For any of us on EMT City, seems both excellent and obvious choice.

I concur with it needing perhaps only 10 minutes to make your CUPS status determination, which then becomes basis for the "Load & Go" versus "Stay and Play" decision. That should be on any call, whether across the street from the ER, or 5 hours at full Emergency status due to no helo available.

So much for allowint the string to die. MODERATORS! Please lock this string, before someone gets hurt!

So called "Black Humor" is a survival technique of all in the emergency services. Just make sure no civilians are within earshot, or risk getting labled as, at minimum, an "insensitive jerk". If you don't blow off steam, sometimes, with the black humor, there's risk of PTSD somewhere down the road.

I concur, Cap.

I forgot to indicate that my protocols might be different than anyone else's, if they are not FDNY EMS. Whatever your local protocols are, follow them.

Capn C, the call was a Cardiac Arrest from a nursing home rumored to hold off CPR until the ambulance crew arrives on the floor. How else could we be sweating up a storm after 30 seconds, when they supposedly have been doing CPR for the 4 minutes we were in response mode, but are appearing clean and non-disheveled?

Due to availability of ALS where I am at, here in NYC, the FDNY EMS policy is, in my words, "When in doubt, give a shout". Call for ALS, and if they have not arrived by the time you're loading, the department's policy is to decide which is the shorter time, the ETA of ALS to the call location, ETA to an intercept point, or your ETA to the ER with no ALS. I had a run where my ETA was 90 seconds from scene to ER, and the ALS was a minute behind me. They turned in on one end of the block, and saw my lights leaving the other end of the block. They were upset that I didn't wait for them, but my Lieutenant and Captain supported my partner and me in the decision.

Per the FDNY's own website starting out EMTs, and their application for an upcoming civil service test for the job at http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcas/downloads/pdf/noes/201202004000.pdf : The current minimum salary is $31,931 per annum. This rate is subject to change.

Per my past viewings of the Darwin Awards website, that phrase is supposedly spoken by the candidates, just before they become awardees or runners-up.

As some have already commented, you die, you win, you survive, you qualify as a runner-up. DFIB, that guy in the vest wouldn't qualify for the Darwin Runner-up awards, because he didn't shoot himself, his buddy did. Either as a winner or runner-up, the rules clearly state one has to do it to themselves, not have done by another, or cause anyone else to get hurt or killed.

And to think I just posted the www for the Darwin Awards to the string on irony. The man pictured qualifies for the Darwin Award runners-up lists.

Considering those who die trying to prove "them" wrong, and supposedly improving the gene pool by removing themselves from it, I present, to the EMT City, the Darwin Awards! http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/

Attempt at irony: A youth kills his parents and siblings, then asks leniency from the courts because he's an orphan.

That almost sounds like comedian Steven Wright's question of

Someone asked how to determine which ambulance type is which. I'll try to keep it simple and generalized. Type One- kind of looks like a box put on the back of a pickup truck. Type Two- a raised roof van. I believe all "Sprinter" ambulances to be in this category, too Type Three- a "Cutaway" van, with a wider than cab box mounted behind the cab. Type Four- OK, that is an unofficial title for "Parade Detail" use only, no transport, historical "Caddy-Lances", which have not been able to meet US Federal standards for a few decades, now. "Long-Timers" like me regale "noobs" with tales of their smooth rides, and other related stuff.

He's photographed at the river, not the chicken farm, so that's why no shots of "chicks". LOL

That big ambulance sure looks like a Freightliner type 1 to me. If I understand NY Law, you can shoot an intruder within a structure with a legally licensed and registered gun, IF the person is within a specified distance from you, armed with a knife or gun, and facing you. The bad joke is, if the intruder is still in the window, after shooting him, you must pull him completely inside the window before calling 9-1-1. I treat patients, some of which might be illegal immigrants. I will work with all races, places of national origin, both sexes, persons of same sex interests, in fact, everyone but the little green men from Mars, but that is just because I've never met any of them.It more boils down to, will they work with crazy ME! Wow. this string has bounced around like a tennis ball in a front load clothes dryer, from an apparent EMS poseur (if I understand the OP to be an impersonator of level of training), to shooting illegal immigrants, to not being able to put up visitors, to Texas and NY laws regarding when and how you can shoot a trespasser, to bigotry, to drinking, or paying for drinks even if not being able to consume said drink, to some thing I must have missed. Now, I have read to the current end of the string, by the way.

Mr. Frazier: I only read to page 4 on this string, and still don't know what set off all this apparent anger against you. I'll just express my concern that, by posting your actual IDs, you might have set yourself up for Identity Theft! It ain't just first responders, EMTs, Paramedics, all levels of nurses, Pysician's assistants, and doctors that read through these postings, pal. Bad guys read here too, unfortunately. Other than that, welcome aboard.

Oops, my bad. This is his 4th video.

Most here might know I am not "into" the "Rap-Music" scene. However, sometimes there is a topic that causes me to listen where normally I wouldn't. Farooq Muhammed, an FDNY EMS Lieutenant (and a Facebook friend of mine), has released his 3rd EMS related Rap Video, with the subject being keeping yourself safe. The video is sponsored by Blauer, and using an ambulance from BRAVO (Bay Ridge Volunteer Ambulance Organization, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, NY). One of the actors in the piece is an FDNY EMS Chief, under whom I worked my last 3 years in the FDNY. For your viewing, enjoyment, and commentary, go to...

2 men had been arrested for disturbing the peace. The judge asked one of them, Mr. Johnson, what happened, and he answered, "We were having a difference of opinion". "Couldn't you have settled the difference of opinion like gentlemen?" "Your honor, that's just what me and Smitty were doing, in the alley behind the bar, when Officers O'Brien and Washington arrested the two of us!"

The majority of the private (read proprietary or Inter Facility Transfer) companies operating within the City of New York, are not a part of the NYC 9-1-1 system, but might be called upon through the New York State Office of Emergency Management during a disaster scenario.